Stumbling Onto Knowledge
by readingrainbows
Summary: I wonder what we'd be doing if we weren't doing this. Jade


_Because eventually, even California Girls begin to feel a little displaced_

The weather in L.A. is, as usual, as unpredictable and unstable as a PMS-ing pre-teen, and as Jade makes herself comfortable on Beck's sorry excuse for a bed, she considers leaving this place. She tips her head upwards slightly, so that her eyes are scanning the metal roof of the recreational vehicle her boyfriend currently inhabits and just the pitter-patter of the heavy rain drops against the surface above her makes goosebumps erupt on her arms.

There's a small click from somewhere on her right but Jade doesn't turn her head to acknowledge it. Instead she imagines her beautiful boyfriend emerging from the much too tiny bathroom in his sleeping attire, his hair all dishevelled and delightfully ruffled from pulling his t-shirt over his head. Just thinking about it makes a smile curve slightly on her lips and quietly he sits down next to her, following her eyes to stare up at the empty space.

"You know what I miss most about sleeping in my house?" he asks, still gazing upwards, forearms resting easily on his knees.

She turns to him, and even though it's dark, even though it's gloomy, she sees the sun.

"What?"

"The way the rain feels like it can never reach you, no matter how bad it gets." He turns to meet her gaze, a grin forming on his too-white teeth "remember that storm last Thursday? The next morning when I went out to check, I swear the RV moved a foot."

She smirks too, his smile was infectious that way, and says, in that cynical, berating tone of hers, "Moving in here was your choice."

"Yep," and he lays back, long legs dangling off the width of the bed, resting his head atop his folded arms, "best decision I ever made."

She elbows him in the ribs hard enough to earn a wince and he quickly turns it into a 1000-watt smile "Well, second best."

His teeth will blind her one day, she thinks, and she stares at him for a few seconds longer until his mouth relaxes and he goes back to gazing at the bolted tiles that make up his home. She follows him, eyes once again fixed on the metal expanse only a few yards above her and she asks the question she's been considering since the clouds first opened up and started pouring.

"Doesn't the weather just sort of annoy you, though?" this is her voice, she thinks, demanding and forever angry, "The way it can't decide to stay warm? Or how winter here starts like, late January and ends early February?"

"You hate winter," he says, yawning wide-mouthed and lazy, eyelashes fluttering because, as she knows, the rain makes him sleepy. The image is cute enough to keep her from telling him to cover-your-mouth-when-you-yawn-you-look-like-a-freaking-ape, so instead she settles herself down next to him, her body curving to face his.

And like an instinct, one that might possibly have been embedded into him the day he was born, he shifts his too, so that one of his darkened arms is resting familiarly around her waist. His half-lidded eyes bore into hers and she feels the goosebumps erupt again.

"Not the point," she murmurs as he tucks his other hand underneath his head "it's just…there are some things I don't like about California."

"I could write a 300 page book of things you don't like, babe," he says it to tease her, but she can't help to feel a little complimented. She could fill up a book about him too, she thinks, a lengthy novel, the greatest narrative ever written.

But still, not the point. She tries again.

"Don't you ever wish you were somewhere else?"

His drowsiness is affecting her, just like everything else he does, in someway, affects her, but she has to tell him this now, while she is drunk off the pitter-patter that seeps into her bones and warm arm draped intimately around her side and sweet breath she can never stop breathing and the half-lidded, painfully mesmerizing eyes that she could fall in love with over and over and over again.

"No," the answer comes after a moment; his voice is thick with sleep and the hand that once lay stagnant on her lower back begins to trace small circles, soft patterns.

"If I were somewhere else," he reasons, just before she's about to open her mouth to challenge him "I wouldn't be here, and this is the place I've always wanted to be."

She thinks about that for a moment, letting her lids fall to cover her eyes, and just like most things that Beck says, it makes her change her mind, helps her comprehend what just moments before seemed to elude her.

"Yeah," she hums, "I guess I've always wanted to be at Hollywood Arts too."

Singing and acting as a course, throwing herself into roles she's read about as a kid and being _graded_ for it, feeling her dream, the one she's been chasing since she could chase after anything, ghost across her finger tips, just barely out of her grasp…perhaps even within her reach... The weather was an annoyance, albeit a minor one, one she would gladly put up with for just one minute in the stoplight…

Thinking this, she can feel herself drifting off, but his fingers never cease tracing, never cease moving, and gently, she hears him speak again.

"That's not what I meant, Jade."

"No?"

She asks, not really caring about the answer, letting her eyes remain closed.

"No," it's the softest whisper she's ever heard; he brushes his lips tenderly across her forehead and her heart hammers in her chest, never quiet use to the fact that someone, anyone, could love her so much. He speaks to her temple.

"No…the only place I've ever wanted to be is here."

At the last word, he pulls her to him in such a way that for a second she feels as if she will suffocate at how desperately close he presses the length of his body against hers.

His voice trails off and his hand finally stills, but his mouth stays pressed against her forehead. Her eyes flicker open staring at the unbelievable boy with his arms wrapped around her like they've been put on this earth solely to do so and she smiles, one as wide and maybe just as bright as his and her hand quivers from where it sits on his chest.

With her face pressed against the worn fabric of his plaid night shirt, it's all she can do to inhale deeply through her nose, holding the scent of hope and promises and forehead kisses inside her, before breathing out trust.

* * *

**Because, I don't know, ****I feel like what with Jade and Beck being together for 2 years, and being performance artists and all that, they would have more creative ways to say 'I love you' to each other than, well, I love you.**

**Also, sorry if I made Jade like, too soft-core for you. But it's rainy and she's drowsy and I truly believe that she's a different person when she and Beck are alone together.**

**So yea, I guess that's all.**


End file.
